Jordan bulked up quite a bit for his role as Erik Killmonger in the upcoming Black Panther, but as he told ET, it wasn't anything he wasn't used to.

"I worked pretty hard for this one. I think Ryan [Coogler] kind of set me up, because we set the bar so high for Creed," he confessed of the director, whom he's collaborated with on three different films, including Fruitvale Station. "He's about the realness."

"We just try to find the cheese in any scene, in any of these characters, and we try to be as grounded as possible," he added. "Honestly, he loves working with actors, he loves working with characters and stories and stuff like that, so I'm extremely lucky to kind of find my director and that relationship so early on in my career, in our careers. We just like to work together, man."

Coogler and Jordan worked together to make sure that Killmonger comes across as the villain to Chadwick Boseman's hero in Black Panther, but also someone who the audience can "empathize with."

"It felt good [to be the bad guy], indulging that side of you," Jordan confessed. "But if we did our job correctly, he's a bad guy that people can empathize with [and] kind of see his point of view. I feel like if you can understand him, and understand the method to his madness a little bit, I think those make for the most interesting villains to actually watch. I think we might have pulled that off."

Though there's still a lot of secrecy surrounding Black Panther -- Jordan only teased the "significance" of his skin prosthetics -- he said he's proud of how excited audiences are for the film.

"Honestly, to be able to do a project like this, with this type of cast, type of talent, working with Ryan again and having the entire community, all walks of life be excited about it, I think that's truly something special," he shared.